IEEE's 802.22 standard can deliver broadband to 62 miles away

The industry standards body IEEE has officially published its new IEEE 802.22 standard, which uses empty spaces
in the TV frequency spectrum to deliver fast broadband to a vast
area.

According to the association's ambitious claims, 802.22
could deliver speeds of up to 22Mbps to devices and homes as far as
62 miles away from a Wi-Fi hotspot.

This gives the network a 12,000 square-mile-reach, meaning
you could theoretically get internet coverage to the entire United
States with around 300 devices, or cover London 20 times over with
just one wireless station.

"This technology is especially useful for serving less
densely populated areas, such as rural areas, and developing countries where most vacant TV
channels can be found," a spokesperson for the standards body
said.

This so-called "whitespace" -- the unused airwaves between
broadcast TV channels -- has been gaining momentum in the
technology community. Dell, Google and Microsoft are all early adopters of the new
standard, and the latter is even testing it in the UK.

A Microsoft-led consortium (including BBC, BT, BSkyB and a
number of organisations that don't have a B in their intitialism)
has been testing networks in the white space in Cambridge since earlier
this year.

But there are still some substantial hurdles to overcome.
Tim Newton from Neul, the company running the radio side of the
white-space trials in Cambridge, expressed the many engineering challenges in getting the system
working, at this June's Future of Wireless conference.

There are also worries that the white space will interfere
with broadcast channels -- the National Association of Broadcasters
has been lobbying against the use of white space because of this.
The IEEE, however, says 802.22 works, "without interfering with
reception of existing TV broadcast stations."

There are also plenty of hurdles to leap with Parliament and
independent communications regulator Ofcom before the protocol can be used more widely in
Britain.

Edited by Duncan Geere

Comments

Yes, and what about the public health concerns ? It's like we are as a sliced bread, where each "empty space" is a wavelength in which we weren't yet irradiated . Is that OK ?Is like saying, "OK, we used against you the A-bomb, the guns, tanks, arrows, stones,... (you name it) ... let's hit you more and more, maybe eventually we'll succeed to kill you entirely" ....